Lucknow, the city of ‘Nawabs’, is once again in the limelight for the key electoral contest between BJP’s star candidate and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other contenders of the INDIA bloc and the BSP.
Though the fight from the capital city of Uttar Pradesh has always been one-sided with the stakes in favour of the saffron party, one can hope for surprises this time.
Singh, aiming for a hat-trick from the ‘Karambhoomi’ of BJP stalwart and former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is facing local leader Ravidas Mehrotra of the Samajwadi Party (SP). The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded Sarwar Ali from the seat.
Polling for the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat will be held in the fifth phase on May 20.
This is for the first time in the last three decades that opposition parties, including the SP, BSP and Congress, have not placed their bets on any outsider or Bollywood star from the constituency.
BJP has been continuously winning from Lucknow parliamentary constituency from 1991 to 2019.
If we talk about the period from 1996 general elections till now, then from SP, Congress, AAP or BSP, some famous outsider face or some Bollywood star had been fielded in the election in Lucknow. However, this city has neither been influenced by the magic of Bollywood stars nor any big name. Everyone has faced defeat here.
Now, after almost three decades, SP has fielded its local MLA and senior leader Ravidas Mehrotra on behalf of the India Alliance to take on the BJP. BSP has made the contest exciting by giving tickets to Sarwar Ali. Sarwar Ali has previously contested assembly elections from the North seat of Lucknow. His wife has also contested the mayor’s election. However, both had to face defeat in the elections.
Political experts say that this time the elections could become very interesting due to the alliance between SP and Congress and the entry of local powerful leaders in the electoral fray.
Rajnath Singh’s two sons – Pankaj , MLA from Noida and Neeraj, a BJP leader were anchoring the campaigning of their father. Besides, chief minister Yogi Adityanath along with several ministers were camping in Lucknow to ensure a record victory for the BJP candidate.
Rajnath Singh himself addressed two-three meetings daily in the evening after his campaign in other parts of the country.
In both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls , Rajnath Singh won by a margin of over 3.50 lakh votes. In 2019 , he defeated Poonam Sinha ,wife of actor Shatrughan Sinha of the Samajwadi Party and in 2014 he defeated Congress candidate Rita Bahuguna Joshi. In this AAP had also fielded actor Javed Jaffrey, who received just 41,000 votes.
SP candidate Mehrotra was banking on his local popularity and on the backward- Muslim connection.
Both SP and BSP were also giving importance to door to door canvassing.
SP President Akhilesh Yadav had addressed a few meetings.
Though development remains the main issue in the elections of the state capital,
problems of the daily traffic jams, security, roads, electricity and water, regularization of irregular colonies were raised by the voters.
Low voting percentage in the past elections were also a major issue for Lucknow, where everyone has joined hands to improve it this time.
Lucknow parliamentary constituency includes 5 assembly seats of the city, Lucknow (West), Lucknow North, Lucknow East, Lucknow Central and Lucknow Cantonment. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected MP from this parliamentary seat 5 times from 1991 to 2004. BJP’s Lal ji Tandon was elected in 2009.
Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of the country three times. For the first time in 1996, he completed his tenure of 13 days, second time in 1998 for 13 months and for the third consecutive time he completed his tenure of 5 years from 1999 to 2004.
Lucknow in the past elections had seen intense campaigning by Bollywood stars, which is missing this time.
In the year 2019, Poonam Sinha, wife of former BJP leader film star Shatrughan Sinha, was the candidate of the alliance. In this election, Shatrughan Sinha and daughter Sonakshi campaigned a lot and many film stars also came to campaign, but Lucknow did not give them any attention.
In the 2014 elections itself, AAP had fielded Bollywood actor Javed Jaffrey, son of famous comedian Jagdeep. But he too was disappointed.
In the 1996 elections, SP fielded Raj Babbar, spoiling its election intentions. The crowd used to rush to get a glimpse of Raj Babbar, but the crushing defeat had ruined Raj Babbar’s intentions.
In 1999 Veteran Congress leader Dr. Karan Singh belonging to the royal family of Kashmir tried his luck on the political ground of Lucknow, but that too did not materialize.
In the year 1998, Muzaffar Ali, who made famous films like Umrao Jaan and belonged to the royal family of Kotwara State, contested elections from Lucknow under the flag of SP, but the victory eluded him.
Raj Babbar, Dr. Karan Singh and Muzaffar Ali were defeated by Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee.